The Washington Post Has Now Hedged Its Stunning Claim About Google, Facebook, Etc, Giving The Government Direct Access To Their Servers

OMEGAMaybe this guy is "directly tapping into" Google's servers. But the government probably isn't.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported a shocking story about how the FBI and National Security Agency had partnered with Google, Facebook, and many other tech companies to spy on the tech companies' hundreds of millions of users.

The government agencies, the Post said, were "tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time."

This surveillance program, the Post reported, had been "knowingly" facilitated by the tech companies, which had allowed the government to tap directly into their central servers.

The Post story described a "career intelligence officer" as being so horrified by the power and privacy intrusion of this surveillance system that the officer was helping to leak the news to expose it.

"They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer reportedly told the Post.

Not surprisingly, the Post's story created an instant explosion of outrage. The ire was directed at both the government and the technology companies.

In other words, the Post appears to have essentially retracted the most startling and important part of its story: That the country's largest technology companies have voluntarily given the government direct access to their central servers so the government can spy on the tech companies' users in real time.

Specifically, here's how the Washington Post story has changed...

Here's the original first paragraph:

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

Here's the updated paragraph (our emphasis):

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

That change is important. The direct-access claim changes from a fact asserted by the Washington Post to a claim made in a document the Washington Post has seen--a document that might be wrong.

The idea that Google, Facebook, Apple, et al, had voluntarily given the government direct unfettered access to their servers always seemed far-fetched.

This behavior would justifiably trigger the wrath of the companies' hundreds of millions of users worldwide and exacerbate already existing concerns that these companies routinely trample all over their users' privacy.

Furthermore, the government's assertions that its spying programs are directed primarily at foreigners, not US citizens, would not be viewed as comforting to Google, Facebook, et al.

Why not?

Because the vast majority of the users of these companies' services are foreigners.

If the international users of Facebook, Google, et al, were to feel that the companies were opening their data centers in this way, the international users might revolt. So it's hard to imagine that these companies would just voluntarily open their servers to the U.S. government (or, for that matter, any other government).

The Washington Post also broke the news about the existence of the vast government program Internet spying called PRISM, which other outlets have since confirmed. And the story illustrated how extensively the government uses Internet communications in its intelligence efforts and how important these communications are to national security.

But, a day after the Post story appeared, it seems likely that the following claims are wrong or at least need major qualification:

that the NSA and FBI are "tapping directly into the central servers" of Facebook, Google, et al, and,

that the government can "quite literally watch your ideas form as you type."